08/04/2010

Ed Goes

The number is probably pretty high, but probably not even close to the number of different courses Ed Gould has played.

Gould, a resident of Leesburg, Va., and Tournament Chairman for this week’s AJGA Junior at River Creek, has played an astounding 570 different courses in his lifetime.

“For a guy who wasn’t trying to do anything special, it’s been pretty nice. It makes a nice conversation piece,” Gould said jokingly.

Gould has played everywhere from Augusta National to Medinah and Pebble Beach, along with courses in the Philippines, Thailand, Ireland, Scotland and Germany including around 30 of the top 100 in the world and seven of the top 10. He’s even mixed in some nine-hole courses and others in the middle of nowhere, but he loves every one of them just as much as the next.

“It’s fun,” Gould said. “You meet a lot of people, some of the greatest people in the world.”

Gould, now 69, found his love for the game at age 22 after graduating from The Citadel. The travel that came with being in the military allowed him to tour the world and play courses far and wide. In the early years when he took up the game, he collected all of his scorecards from his rounds and kept them in a box.

But after the number of cards began to pile up, Gould instead just started to keep a list of his travels but has since began keeping his scorecards again with plans of making a collage to hang in his basement.

The most recent milestone of Gould’s tally came at Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Club, his 500th different course, in the mountains of Front Royal, Va., about an hour from his Leesburg home at River Creek Club.

As for plans for what his 600th might be, Gould isn’t too sure yet but he has his eye on Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, Calif., currently No. 2 in the world according to Golf magazine.